Chabad is holding what it says is the first group Bar Mitzvah for special-needs children. On Sept. 2, the Friendship Circle, a Chabad program in which teenage volunteers help physically and mentally retarded children, will hold a Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony for five special-needs kids in West Bloomfield, Mich. Parents of such children often are so overburdened with caring for their children that they are reluctant to undertake the laborious preparation required for a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, Chabad said.
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